


bury me shallow (so i come back)

by leov66



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Inspired by Anastasia (1997), M/M, adam is really in for the money, excessive use of snow metaphors and symbolism, gansey doesnt know hes gansey, ronan and adam protect each other, ronan is in for the money (supposedly)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-28 21:31:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16731003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leov66/pseuds/leov66
Summary: The Gansey family was assassinated by political enemies (a white-gloved way to sayslaughtered by paid murderers) but for Helen Gansey, married and living in Paris. That was ten years ago, and now she's trying to find her brother Richard Gansey the Third, who she believes has survived.Ronan Lynch would do anything to get out of England and an amnesiac orphan might be the answer to his (lack of) prayers.This is a highly Anastasia the musical-inspired TRC story.





	bury me shallow (so i come back)

**Author's Note:**

> made some plot changes obviously but the idea was just too good to resist.

They’re still on the train when Ronan knows that most of the money he gets from this will go to his own therapy. With every rattle of the less-than-comfortable carriage he loses his grip on sanity and the need to strangle Richard grows.

 

“All I’m saying is that it would be pointless to ask anyone about-”, the very same Richard goes on to say and suddenly cuts off, much to Ronan and Adam’s relief. That boy’s a nail in their (joint) coffin, but the thought of the reward that awaits them in Paris keeps them going. The last few weeks were a whirlwind of names, dates and forgotten memories. Of course, it would’ve been a lot easier if Richard didn’t try to argue about whether or not it was pointless whenever he got a chance to do so, just as he’s intended seconds before. For a lost orphan that wanted to get out of the country so badly, he’s surely got a temper and a pride. (Ronan doesn’t want to think of a time long gone and a boy sitting straight as a king.)

 

The relief and the silence that follows, however pleasant, is momentary as footsteps echo across the corridor connecting all carriage. In theory, their papers are good enough to get them out of the country, Adam made sure that the remains of his and Ronan’s money didn’t go to waste on those, but if run-ins with the authorities have ever taught Ronan anything, it was that most of these bastards don’t care. If they’re in the mood, they’ll shoot you anyway. He shares a look with Adam, and it’s all-too familiar, _run_. If they jump from the carriage before the policemen get to them, they should be safe. They don’t have more than a bag each, so they’re rushing out of the door in two heartbeats except-

 

Richard’s pale as the snow, the kind no one gets through. The kind that suffocates you with its coldness. A single gunshot feels drawn out to an eternity as Richard stills, his eyes somewhere else, at a different place and time. He mouths a single _no_ and his legs give in, and Ronan’s by his side, both hands on his shoulders, rubbing them in a mockery of a comforting gesture. “Please, we need to go, you’re okay, I promise,” whispered half to himself, half to Richard. There’s something deeply unsetting in this expressionless face, a death mask almost. “R, listen to me, I’m here, they’ll kill us if we stay,” he pleads, and the alleyways know Ronan Lynch isn’t one to beg but he’d beg Richard if it changed anything. His hands move up to Richard’s neck, than further, cupping his face. “We need to go _now_.”

 

_“They didn’t run. Didn’t- have to.”_

 

Adam’s usually unreadable face twists in- Ronan would’ve said mercy if he didn’t know any better. He motions towards the exit and leaves first, looking around to make sure the policemen haven’t reached their carriage. Ronan’s fingers feel like fire on Richard’s ice-cold cheeks. “Come on, I’ll help you stand, let’s go.” With hesitance, he manages to stand up, mostly just leaning on Ronan, still breathing in short gasps but not as ghostlike. Ronan takes his and Richard’s bags and follows after Adam, ignoring the pang in his chest from when he heard Richard speak. It sounded as if it were coming from within him, buried so deep that not even the snow melting would make it seen.

 

* * *

 

 

They spend the night in the remains of a palace. It’s not a ruin yet, but it’s not far from that either. The ballroom might’ve been a source of pride in its prime days but now, with its cracked mirrors and a vault that looks like it’s giving up, it’s just another ghost of the past that’s long gone. Richard takes an immediate liking to it. They sleep on the floor of one of the living rooms, just by the chimney that Adam lit a few hours before, wrapped in what little blankets they have, and Ronan can see Richard shivering from where he lies. After a few minutes of tossing and turning, Richard stands up, carefully folds the blanket he was lying under and makes his way towards the hall. Ronan has never seen anything like this, painfully belonging to yet also contrasting its surrounding. He takes a look at Adam, who’s sleeping peacefully for now. Knowing that any sharp noise could wake him up, Ronan stands up, too, quietly, and follows after Richard.

 

Richard’s tracing the walls with his right hand, his step coming quiet as ever. Quiet like the snow you never see coming until you’re stuck in it. The ballroom at night looks like a true relict from the past, dark but for the light coming from the moon. Half of the hall’s mirros and the other’s windows. Ronan sees two, three, five Richards, all pale from the moonlight, all ghosts, all turning around to face him with a silent gasp. Only one hand stretches towards him, almost an invitation but Ronan doesn’t want to think about it.

 

“Why aren’t you asleep?”, Richard asks as if Ronan hasn’t followed him and has just woken up.

 

“Too much in my head,” Ronan’s response comes immediately, followed by a shrug. He hasn’t slept well in a long time.

 

They stand like that, a statue-like pose copied by their reflections, each more real than the original. A single breath lasts for hours before either of them speaks. “Cold feet,” Richard mutters. “Metaphorical _and_ literal.” His mouth twists in a smile at his own joke. It’s almost endearing. “Who am I, Ronan,” the boy in the mirrors asks and Ronan doesn’t know the answer like he doesn’t know a thousand other answers. He wants to say _a nobody from the street, just like me, a winter sunrise, the remedy for the ache in my chest, Gansey_. Instead he keeps his mouth shut.

 

Richard has never looked like this, unruly hair half-illuminated by the moon, lips slightly parted, eyes wide open, taking Ronan in like he was someone to look at. Shame freezes him under that stare, paralyzing dread that there’s something _so much more_ in Richard, fear that Ronan’s hands and mouth would only feel marble and ash, but he itches for it anyway.

 

“I remember- a song, on an old gramophone, a living room,” Richard starts carefully. “Dance with me, Ronan.” He extends a hand before Ronan opens his mouth.

 

“There’s no music.”

 

Richard smiles at that. “It’s okay, no one’s watching.” Something tells Ronan he did that before, as a boy. Maybe when the party was over and no one was there to see him dancing alone.

 

Richard’s hands feel freezing on Ronan’s shoulders, but he tries to follow the other’s shaky footsteps. Ronan wonders if it’s all muscle memory. It’s not something someone’s danced before, something between a walk to an imaginary rythm and the slowest waltz, but they manage well enough. Their reflections follow them just as their shadows do, haunting figures in a forgotten ballroom, forgotten but for one. Ronan wants to hate himself for the way he leans into Richard’s faintest touch, but he already misses the moment while it lasts. He doesn’t know if it were minutes or seconds, but they inevitably pull away, the same way autumn gives in to winter. The cold settles deeper within Ronan, gnawing at the void in his chest.

 

“You’re a good dancer, Ronan,” Richard says, slightly out of breath.

 

Ronan turns away, suddenly tired as if he’s worked two days at the factory. “Pity no one saw, then.” He’s gone before Richard can reply.

 

* * *

 

 

They make their way to Paris on a ship, in a cabin bought by the diamond sewn onto Richard’s shirt, surprisingly comfortable and strangely quiet. Adam sleeps a lot, better or worse, but at least he’s resting. Or maybe he, too, doesn’t know what to do with himself. Sleeping off all the years of murderous work feels like a better alternative to what Ronan’s doing. The way the ship rolls at the waves makes his stomach turn and his head pound. He sulks at the deck most of the time, staring at the horizon, trying to comprehend what he’s left behind.

 

He’s spent years shaping himself into _this_ , a lowlife nobody who keeps his head down and his mouth shut. A worker who does what he has to do and never more. A shadow on the wall, with no past and no future but the present crafted by his hands. A thief who steals to live and doesn’t walk past a starving child because he knows hunger like a brother.

 

He remembers Matthew, a lovely little bird of a boy, shivering in the November wind, hunched under Ronan’s shirt, delirious from the illness only warmth could cure. Snowflakes in his pale hair, nothing but skin and bones. He remembers a broken promise, _hold on, please, I’ll be back in a few hours, they say there’s a daily wage, I’ll get us something_. He came back to a corpse, the shirt stolen, snow falling on his shaking hands and mixing with the hot tears. No hell like this world. He wanted to blame his father and Declan, for their anarchism that didn’t do anything but take both of them away. They blew themselves up in a mine, along with the rest of their foolish comrades. Ronan hates revolutions. No one’s ever happier because of someone higher in the hierarchy dying.

 

Without Adam, he would’ve ended up dead in an alleyway, fists bloody, body even more broken. He was the one who found him the job at the factory and kept him from cocaine when all the workers took it to forget the heat. In return, Ronan stole and lied about it, helped when he could and when his name couldn’t be linked to it. Of course he still fought, but at least those guys paid him for winning. Most of the time they did, and when they didn’t, he made sure to blame the bruises on an accident when talking to Adam. The two of them were a good team, surviving no matter the cost, maybe because it was all they could do.

 

“Have you left the country before?”, Richard asks, catching Ronan off-guard. He snaps his face back into a cold mask and turns to face him.

 

“What’s it look like to you?”, he snarls, hoping Richard blames it on the sea sickness. It’s not enough to turn him away, but Ronan can’t bring himself to go on. Of course it’s not enough to turn Richard away. He sits down next to him, though there’s some distance between them, about as wide as half of either of them. At least they’re not touching. Richard leans his chin on the barrier and breathes in the salty air. 

 

“I never thought I’d be leaving like this.” His face, usually at least half-illuminated by a smile or at least _something_ in his eyes, is unreadable now. There’s something distant in it, like snow slowly covering a footprint. “Never thought I’d be leaving.” Ronan can feel the snow now, too, ice-cold inside his chest and creeping up his arms. “ _How can I desert you, how to tell you why,_ ” Richard hums more to himself than to Ronan. The tune is familiar but so _old_ , something Ronan’s parents would sing when there was bread on the table and they could go out to dance. “ _Coachmen, hold the horses, stay, I pray you._ ”

 

“ _Let me have a moment,_ ” Ronan sings on, despite everything inside him freezing to the bone, “ _let me say goodbye._ ” His voice cracks from lack of use and something that he can’t name yet out of fear that it’ll die like the notes.

 

Richard smiles at him, but it’s like a winter sun that only turns into ice. “ _I’ll bless my homeland ’till I die._ ”

 

The ship goes on, and Paris awaits both of them. A few more days and Richard’s reunited with his sister. Ronan and Adam get the money and it’s all over.

 

Ronan wishes the cruise would last forever.

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE pardon the songfic bits i couldnt help it.
> 
>  
> 
> **comments and kudos keep writers motivated**


End file.
